Nailed Coil
This Is My War
4.6
In the sake of variety I decided to take a blind pick. Looking at my back catalog of reviews here I realized that I hadn’t really strayed too far from the genres I liked, mainly sticking with the releases I knew what to expect from. It was time to shake things up a bit. With a somewhat pensive leap of faith I got to work listening to Finnish upstarts Nailed Coil.
“This is my War” limps along like a winded, mild mannered version of 80’s thrash sporting tough-guy hardcore vocals before stumbling into a run of the mill breakdown. I was treated to a verse repetition before I found myself listening to another breakdown…no…I shit you not…another friggin breakdown. Maybe it was the pointless Fear Factory influenced clean guitar line and out of place clean vocals, but whatever it was, This Is My War was not off to an impressive start.
I took a deep breath, now a little wiser and more ready for whatever was to come next. I was ready for some more bay area thrash mixed with modern metalcore just oh god, stop the repetitive riffing…but my pleas were to no avail. “My Disease”, the heaviest and most melodic of the album, showcases some decent lead guitar work and occasional glimpses of talented musicianship from all the members but is terribly weighed down by unimaginative and simplistic songwriting. Nailed Coil would correct the predictability and hackneyed riffs greatly by relaxing on their influences and focusing more on finding their own voice.
“The Shine” tries its hand at death metal, but comes off as more of a lackluster, weaker version of Killswitch Engage. The drumming, though slow, is competent but not shockingly impressive either as it’s here that the apparent lack of double bass and blast beats becomes painfully obvious. There’s also some half rate attempts at the groove of a band like Pantera, but the overall tempo is so slow that any attempt at intensity gets bogged down way too quickly.
Nailed Coil sounds unable to decide what direction they really want to go in or what sound they really want. Maybe they thought by playing a bit of everything they liked together it’d be a winning combination. No, it’s not. I appreciate the variety and attempted genre splicing but it has to be done right, they just seem to have missed the mark completely by writing patchy songs with no sign of cohesiveness. Despite my less than flattering opinion, these guys have plenty of potential as musicians to be able to rise above the mistakes they made on This Is My War, but until then I’m still unconvinced and left disappointed.
